


... I lived, God Knows I Loved...

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: God Knows I... [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Civil War (Marvel), Hurt Tony, I'm Sorry, M/M, Protective Steve, To Be Continued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 18:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5302103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 2:<br/>As Tony lays dying, the shattered remains of his reactor and his relation-friendship with Steve scattered around his broken form, he thinks about whether or not he'd imagined. Imagined everything he thought he'd had with Steve, and that... well, that hurts a lot more than the shrapnel. Will his last memory be of the betrayal of yet another person he trusted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	... I lived, God Knows I Loved...

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [爱过](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6847249) by [bluebluebonnet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebluebonnet/pseuds/bluebluebonnet)



> Yeah, I couldn't leave it with the angst so..

If there is one thing that Tony wishes desperately to do on a regular basis it is to punch his father in the face. As he lays there, though, with the crumbling pieces of his heart slowly but surely killing him he thinks back on all the times that Howard lied to him. Not about his worth or about what he would be when he grew up; not about the things he did to earn money or why he always came home late at night and reeking of cognac and cigarette smoke. No, he hasn’t hated his father so much for lying as he does not because up until now he’d always held one thing that his father had told him to be truth. That truth is the fact that Steven Grant Rogers was honest. That he was good. That if he counted someone as a friend then he would go to the ends of the earth for that person.

Though, maybe, it wasn’t that his father lied when he told him that about Steve. Maybe the truth was that Tony was simply not good enough to be Steve’s friend. Maybe that had been _his_ fault, not Steve’s, to think that he could count someone so… pure as his best friend.

How was he to think otherwise though? When Steve was always telling him that he was the best man that he had ever encountered since Bucky. How was Tony supposed to have known that Steve wasn’t as invested into their relation—friendship as he had been? Steve had forced him to bonding time with the team, Steve had hauled him around the globe for missions as his right hand man, Steve had requested his help when dealing with SHIELD, Steve had asked for his company on the nights he had nightmares, Steve was the one that fell asleep with his head on Tony’s shoulder first, Steve was the one to teach him how to cook late at night when it had been just the two of them, Steve was the one that had wrapped his arm around Tony’s shoulders after yet another nightmare, Steve was the one that had held his hand when he’d been transported to medical after a mishap with the thrusters, Steve was the one that had kissed him when the suit had been brought down (Tony had been completely out of it when this happened, but he has the video feed from the surrounding cameras as well as the testimony from his team as proof,) Steve was the one that had insinuated himself to Tony’s bed, Steve was the one that called him _sweetheart_ on a regular basis, Steve…. Steve was the one that had forced Tony to fall in love with him more than he’d loved Captain America as a kid.

 _That couldn’t all be a lie,_ Tony thinks as he stares into Cap’s eyes beneath the cowl. There’s moisture at the corner of his blue eyes, _those pretty sky blue eyes_ , and he can’t be faking that, can he? Unbidden, memories of Obie flash in Tony’s mind. The way that he was always there when Tony was floundering with the company, the way in which the old man used to pat him on the back or rub his shoulder and tell him that he could definitely come up with another invention, the way that he used to smile at Tony when he was praising him for yet another bomb, the way he used to wrap his arm around Tony’s shoulders in front of the cameras and declare him to be a higher genius than Howard himself, the way Obie used to encourage his benders, the way he used to call Tony _son_ more than his own child and then… then Obie had tried to kill him. Three different times. Was Steve the same? Tony wondered as the soldier tried to make sense of the mangled messed that was Tony’s chest.

 _Had Steve been playing him all along?_ He thought, his gut wrenching painfully with horror and pain as Steve glanced sideways at Bucky as if seeking help. Seeking comfort. Something that Tony used to give him. _Had Tony only been filling the hole while Steve found Bucky again?_ Something ugly and dark twists in Tony’s heart as he looks at them. The pair of them fit so perfectly together; Steve doesn’t have to say anything, but Bucky is already hoisting the armor a bit higher to make Tony more comfortable (it doesn’t work, and he has to grit his teeth at the movement to not discover his paint to the others.)

“Leave. It.” he says through clenched teeth. Steve’s eyes snap up to his when he realizes Tony wasn’t out cold yet. Sure, he had a dizzy spell and he thought he’d heard Jarvis, the real Jarvis, lulling him to sleep as he used to when he was a child, but that was just the pain talking. He is very aware of how his chest is tearing on the inside, but the stubborn part of him knows that this is a good thing. As long as he feels pain then he’s okay. As long as he’s in pain he’s kicking. As long as he’s alive someone who’s betrayed him hasn’t won. “Should go. ‘Fore they c-come lookin’ fo’ boy wonder ove’here.” Tony’s aware of how malicious he sounds telling Steve this, but he doesn’t care. It’s not like the asshole minds, anyway, he’d made it clear that Bucky was his number one priority. Joke’s been on Tony this whole time thinking that he could hold a candle to Barnes.

“Not leaving you,” Steve says stubbornly. He takes off his gloves, stupid idiot his damn prints are going to be all over the metal, and begins to work the latches. The secret crooks that Tony put into the suit if he’d ever needed to be taken out of it. The secret hinges that he’d told only Steve about. Those nimble fingers are working them as fast as they can, but they’re shaking. Steve’s _whole body_ is shaking with tension. The ugly twisted part of Tony tells him that he’s only making sure that he’s truly dead before he skips off with his best friend.

“Already ‘ave,” Tony spits at him. He wants to hurt him. He wants to hurt Steve as much as he’s already broken him because even if by some miracle Tasha was tracking their location and will make it there on time Tony has no illusions, now, that Steve would even say.

“Don’t,” Steve tells him shortly, and then curses at a particularly stubborn lock that doesn’t want to give. He’s so frustrated, he looks like he’s about to start hitting things with his shield, and he’s so fucking beautiful to Tony that he could kiss him right then. Mark him as Tony’s one last time before Bucky takes him away again.

“Let me,” Barnes says quietly from beside them as he moves Steve so that he’s supporting Tony’s weight by his shoulder with one hand and his neck with the other. Tony’s anger flares, and he gets a rush of energy to grip Bucky’s arm. Barnes looks up at him, and there’s a moment where Tony recognizes a bit of himself in the way Bucky’s looking at him. This isn’t the Winter Soldier; this is a man that has been tortured and haunted and rejected and ostracized for decades. For a second, Tony recognizes himself in Bucky’s dark brown eyes. “Let me help, Stark. Let me make it better.”

“Can’t,” Tony says. He sounds broken, he knows, but what else is there? If he can’t hold on to his anger and hate Barnes, hate _Steve_ , then what else can he cling to? He’s not going to last much longer. Hell, just sitting here breathing is making things much worse for him. He closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall; it’s taking all of his energy not to sob. “ _Go_. You can—you can get ‘way. You c-can st-sta-start over. Steve,” he says desperately, meeting the soldier’s intense eyes. “’s what you wan’. What you b-be-been fightin’ for. What _this_ ,” he manages to make a sort of desperate shrug “wasss fo’”

“Not this,” Steve whispers brokenly as he brings both hands up to force Tony to meet his eyes. “Never this, Shellhead. Never trade you for him or the other way around. Never tear my heart out, even for Bucky.” And the thing is that he sounds so sincere, saying this in front of Barnes even. He _looks_ so sincere, with his face sweaty and dirty with soot and his hair matted after he took off the cowl. Tony wants so desperately to believe him.

“Liar,” Tony sobs. He can barely draw breath, but he has to. He can feel his eyes starting to fall shut; dear God, they feel so heavy. He has to keep talking to Steve, though. If this is the last thing he has then he wants all of it; as much as he can get. “You lyin’. Lied ‘bout eve’ythin’. ‘Bout me. ‘Bout us.”

Tony can hear Steve’s breath hitching at that, at being hit with that accusation, but he doesn’t care. God, he’s so fucking tired. He’s so tired, and in pain even though not all of it from the shrapnel, and he’s starting to lose hope of making it out of this alive.

“Steve!” Bucky says harshly, the faint clicking of metal against metal sounds in the background. “Keep him talking. I almost got this, but it’s going to be for nothing if you don’t keep him awake. He needs you to keep him breathing.” That seems to kick Tony’s soldier into gear.

“Never lied,” Steve tells him hoarsely. He brings his forehead to Tony’s, the genius goes cross eyed trying to look at him, and clenches his eyes shut. “Never lied about a damn thing.”

“N-no-not your frien’” this time Tony knows he’s sobbing, but he doesn’t care. He can’t keep anything, anymore, and it he’s going to die anyway then what’s the point?

“No, you’re not,” Steve admits. And okay, that hurts. God, that fucking _stings_. Tony had known, but he’d never expected the soldier to be so blunt about it. Had never expected for him to tell him in such a way when he was _dying_ , and he can’t keep the wretched noise that breaks from his throat. He wants to scream, but all he can do is pant for breath. “You’re not my friend, Tony, because you’re so much more. So _goddamn more_ than just my pal. You’re my sweetheart, Tony, you’re my fella. God, you’re—“

“Got it!” Bucky says triumphantly and the pressure on Tony’s chest eases. He thinks it’s because of Steve’s confession, but then the both of them are getting the chest plate off and glass and metal are tinkling on the floor.

The pain gets about a thousand times worse.

“Easy, easy, baby,” Steve’s repeating in his ear as they try to clean him up to look at the mess. He can’t, though, God he can’t keep quiet. He’s whimpering and hissing and crying, but he can’t do a damn thing about it. he can imagine every bit of shrapnel tearing at his inside. “It’s all right, Tony. It’s all right. God, sweetheart, I’ll make it better. I swear to you…”

The rest of what he says gets lost in the noise of a quinjet. Bucky swears loudly and heaves off the floor. Steve looks to the side, to the passageway where they came from, and brings the shield closer.

“’Teve,” Tony tells him brokenly. This is it. The end. God knows he hopes that’s Natasha coming with the spare, but he might not be that lucky. For all he knows, it’s that idiot senator and his people. They’d let Tony die, he knows, because Steve might not know it but the only reason he hadn’t been detained from the beginning was because Tony had pleaded his case. Tony had hoped for a better outcome. “You ‘ave to go. You ‘nd Buck. You ‘ave to leave. ‘Teve, get ‘im outta ‘ere. Go ‘way.”

“Not fucking leaving you _again_!” Steve snarls, and his hand grapples desperately for Tony’s. Bucky looks back at them, and sighs. His hand, which had been holding his gun, drops to rest limply at his side.

“’Teve, _please. Please._ ” Tony tells him desperately. Goddamn it, if they don’t go now then all of this would be for nothing.

“Not leaving you, Shellhead,” Steve tells him. His voice is even; quiet, but sure. His face is settled into that infuriatingly endearing way that his eyes, and his eyes, _God his eyes_ , they’re so blue and bright and sure and brimming with something Tony wants to believe is more than just regard for a teammate. His fingers grip Tony’s tightly. “Never doing that to you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> There might be more. Maybe, I can't promise anything 'cause I'm sleep deprived so...


End file.
